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Belarus gets squeezed as Putin seeks war help and Ukraine threatens strikes

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Ukraine’s northern neighbor was used as a staging ground for Russia’s 2022 invasion, but the country seems intent on not being drawn further into the Kremlin’s war. July 7, 2026 at 5:00 a.m.   Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. (Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images) By Mary Ilyushina  The Washington Post Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is under growing pressure from his warring neighbors, walking a tightrope between not angering his closest ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and not provoking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who has threatened to strike Russian military and security assets in Belarus. Lukashenko, a dictator who has ruled the small post-Soviet country with an iron fist since 1994, has been struggling to not let his country get dragged further into Russia’s war in Ukraine after allowing Putin to invade from Belarusian territory in 2022. But his balancing act has gotten increasingly difficult in recent days. Last month, Lukashenko receive...
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How to get Patriot missiles to Ukraine

Editorial Board: Allies would share their stockpiles if the U.S. guarantees it will replenish them. The Washington Post July 7, 2026 at 11:41 a.m. EDT ) A residential building damaged by a Russian missile strike in Kyiv on July 6.    ( Genya Savilov/AFP ) Early Monday, Russia fired a large salvo of attack drones and missiles at Ukraine, killing at least 22 people — most of them in Kyiv, where rescuers pulled bodies from collapsed apartment blocks. Ukraine’s defenses had swatted down most of the drones. But of the 29 ballistic and hypersonic missiles in the barrage, they intercepted exactly zero. Compare that to three weeks ago, when Ukraine managed to shoot down 15 of the 19 Russian ballistic missiles lobbed at its capital. That’s because Ukraine is out of Patriots, the U.S.-made air defense missiles it has used to defend itself since 2023. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky didn’t mince words. “As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies’ stockpiles,” he said in a...
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Putin visits military installation, vowing to take more of Ukraine

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The Russian president donned military fatigues as he tried to counter a narrative that Moscow is stumbling in its war after Ukrainian drone strikes set off an acute fuel shortage. Today at 4:31 p.m. EDT Russian President Vladimir Putin, shown speaking at a command post in 2025, visited the front line again on Friday in an effort to challenge the narrative that Ukraine holds any military advantage. (AP) By Mary Ilyushina Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare frontline appearance late Friday, donning green military fatigues, to claim breakthroughs in Russia’s war effort and counter what he called Ukraine’s “information and propaganda operation on illusory battlefield results.” In recent weeks, Kyiv appears to have gained momentum through medium- and long-range drone strikes that have hammered occupied Crimea and damaged oil refineries and other energy infrastructure in Russia, leading to gasoline shortages. That perception of success even drew rare praise from President Donald Tr...
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In Strike After Strike, Ukraine Is Bringing the War to Crimea

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By  Marc Santora , Aric Toler and Josh Holder ,  The New York Times , July 4 2026   [ note: most images in the original text could not be reproduced here  for technical reasons; the emphasis on the first two paragraphs was produced mechanically by an unknown individual and or robot.] image from Britannica Celebrating his seizure of Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir V. Putin later called the peninsula an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” hailing Russia’s return there as a symbol of revanchist ambition. Now the Ukrainian military is hammering Crimea with swarming drone attacks, seeking to transform it from a Russian-occupied fortress into a nightmare for the Kremlin to manage.    All of this has shaken life in Crimea to the greatest extent since Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014. It has also caused some Russian forces along the southern front to shift into defensive operations, according to Kostiantyn Mashovets, a Ukrainian military analyst. Over...
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